Chapter 2
Well,no,that wasn’t true.Her own experiences found their way into her stories,but no one knew they were real.She’d written Nick’s sex-capades into her fiction,too.The readers who bought her books loved her“imagination,”as one revieweron Amazon put it.Real life,baby,she’d thought when she read that.I’m just kinkier than you.
Lisa set her magazine aside and sipped the iced tea.Cool and refreshing,just as she’d hoped.Nick’s hand slid up her thigh,then eased under her knee to pull her leg up a little to make more room for him at the end of the lounge.He stood,straddled the chair,and sat back down again as Lisa raised her legs out of the way.When he reached for one of her feet,she arched her toes away from him.“Watch the polish.”
He cupped her heel and began to massage her ankle.“Pretty,”he said,looking at her toenails.“How’d you rub them together like that?”
Lisa scoffed.“Like you care.Thanks for the tea.”
His hands rubbed up her calf,gently kneading the muscle.“My pleasure.Hey,I was wondering…”
“Uh-oh.”Lisa shook her head;she should’ve realized something was up.
Nick quickly assured her,“No,wait.It’s nothing bad.Hear me out.”
With an annoyed smirk,she leveled a bored look his way.“When you say it’s nothing bad,it usually is.”
“Like when?”he asked,smiling.
“Oh,honey,it’s nothing bad,but I sort of ran off the road,”Lisa mocked.“The car was totaled.Or oh,honey,it’snothing bad,but I accidentally spent this month’s mortgage payment on a new cap for my tooth.”
“The other one broke off!”Nick gave her a wounded look,which made her giggle.“You can’t expect me to go around with a broken tooth.I’m an actor!”
Lisa wasn’t amused.“You haven’t had an acting gig in three months.”
“I’m still an actor anyway,”he argued.“If I didn’t have sex for three months,that wouldn’t mean I was no longer sexual.”
“Three months?”she joked.“It’d mean you were dead.Watch the nails.”
His hand had moved up the underside of her leg and now her foot rested in the crook of his arm,her toenails dangerously close to the sleeve of his T-shirt.She arched her foot away from him and he sat back,giving her some room.“Besides,”she added,“it was a back tooth.No one would’ve seen it unless you were deep-throating another guy in a porno.”
“That’s still acting.”Nick sniffed,nursing his pride a moment longer,before he tickled behind her knee and smiled.“Anyway,can I get back what I was saying?”
Lisa leaned back against the lounge chair and relaxed—she liked the way his hands felt on her legs,and how comfortable the heel of her foot fit against his body.“Go on.You were wondering…?”
“Well,”Nick drawled,“somebody’s turning the big three-ohthis year,and—”
“Whoa,no.”Lisa held up one hand to stop him.“I told you before.I’m twenty-nine and holding.After this year,I’m going to start counting backwards.”
Nick frowned,his well-groomed eyebrows furrowing above his perfectly straight nose.“How’s that going to work?”
“Next year,I’ll be twenty-eight,”Lisa said.“Then twenty-seven,then twenty-six.I’m not going to allow myself to get older than thirty.”
Nick was a few months younger than Lisa,which made them roughly the same age.But if the prospect of becoming“middle-aged”scared him,he didn’t show it.Instead,he pointed out,“So when I turn thirty-five,you’ll be twenty-five.”
Lisa liked the sound of that.“Exactly.”
“And when I’m forty,you’ll be twenty,”Nick continued.
Lisa nudged his chest with the heel of her foot.“Look who can do math.”
He squeezed the underside of her knee playfully.“And when I’m fifty,you’ll be ten.”
“Hmm.”Lisa sipped her tea and thought about that.“I alwaysknew you were a perv.Maybe I’ll start counting forward again once I hit twenty.I’ll just rebound back and forth like the world’s oldest co-ed.”
Nick laughed.“Regardless of however old you decide you’re going to be,your birthday’s coming up.And here’s a newsflash—I don’t know what to get you.It should be something grand—”
“Why?”Lisa asked with a smirk.“Twenty-nine isn’t that biga deal.You didn’t get me anything grand the last time it came around.”
“Well,I’m getting you something grand this year,”Nick assured her.“Only I don’t know what that something will be.So tell me what you want.”
The thought of asking for an engagement ring sprang to mind,but Lisa pushed it aside.They were happy together,and she didn’t want to ruin it by pressuring him into marriage.Besides,why bother to get married nowadays,anyway?It wasn’tas if they were planning on having children any time soon,and it was much less hassle to file her own taxes than have to worry about incorporating his,as well.They lived together,slept together,loved each other…why complicate matters?
“You’re quiet,”Nick murmured.
Lisa said,“I’m thinking.”
“What’s the one thing you want more than anything else?”he asked.“Right off the top of your head.Don’t think too much about it.If you could have anything,anything at all…”
“A trip to Hawaii,”Lisa announced.
Nick laughed.“Yeah,that’s going to have to wait for a bigger birthday.I’ll start saving now and maybe we can go in ten years.”
“When I’m twenty,”Lisa pointed out.
“Something cheaper,”he told her.“I love you,but I’m broke.I am an actor,you know.”
“An out-of-work actor.”Lisa finished off her iced tea and set the glass on the patio beside her chair.“Basically you want me to think of something you can afford to buy without having to borrow money from me for my own gift,is that it?”
Nick shrugged,but the sly grin on his face answered her question.
Suddenly Lisa knew what it was she wanted.A warmth rose in the center of her being and she shifted on the chair,feeling a delicious twinge in her clit.Yes,she knew exactly what she wanted,and Nick should’ve known,too,because she mentioned it often enough when they were in bed.
Stretching out her leg,the one he wasn’t massaging,she pressed the heel of her foot into the pillowy cushion of his crotch.“How much do you think you’d have to pay to get me a threesome for my birthday?”